The Right to Financial Privacy Act (12 U.S.C. 3401 et seq.) was Congress' response to a U.S. Supreme Court
decision finding that bank customers had no legal right to privacy in financial
information of theirs held by financial institutions.

The law is largely
procedural. It requires government agencies to provide individuals with notice
and an opportunity to object before a bank or other institution can disclose personal
financial information to a government agency, usually for law enforcement
purposes.

The Right to Financial Privacy Act has many loopholes, and it allows financial
information to be revealed based on a much weaker
showing than the Fourth Amendment requirement of probable cause. The law was
weakened in the late 1980s
to allow postponement of notice to bank customers in investigations dealing with
drug trafficking and espionage.